Anderson Hostetler moved to Bowling Green in 1993 to work at Fruit of the Loom, where he is now vice president for corporate social responsibility, education and development. He was born in Raeford, N.C., and educated at Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, Va., then studied history at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., and attended the business school at the University of North Carolina. He and his wife are proud parents of four children and four grandchildren.

“I co-read with my wife, Denishia, a retired English teacher who has (a Master of Arts degree) in English from WKU. She is an avid reader, a master grammarian and my partner for book discussions,” Hostetler says. In his free time, he enjoys serving on the Advisory Board of WKU’s Gordon Ford College of Business, writing personal letters, watching Southeastern Conference basketball and gardening.

“Reading dominated my home as a youth,” Hostetler says. Both his mother, an English major at Duke University, and his father, an attorney who graduated from Wake Forest University and MIT, were avid readers and passed the love for books and learning to their children. “I recall ‘101 Best Loved Poems,’ edited by Philip Smith, and the Bible being standards in our family readings. My earliest memories of books are Bible stories and Sunday school lessons.”

Hostetler’s preferred genres are history, biography, business philosophy and strategy, poetry and historical fiction. Favorite authors in these varied categories include Rudyard Kipling, Jon Meecham, Malcom Gladwell, Pat Conroy, Rick Bragg, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Shelby Foote and Stephen Ambrose.

Hostetler is always reading a history book, a business title and sometimes a high-drama fiction. He is now in the middle of “Unfamiliar Fishes” by Sarah Vowell, which “addresses a forgotten piece of American history, including the Americanization of Hawaii and its transformation from tribal royalty to Christianity and statehood. The only U.S. state to represent the Union Jack on their flag and the odd circumstances surrounding this fact are disclosed in the book,” he says.

Other titles in Hostetler’s current stack are “Making Haste From Babylon, The Mayflower Pilgrims and Their World – A New History” by Nick Bunker; “The Last Stand” by Nathaniel Philbrick; “Brilliant, the Evolution of Artificial Light” by Jane Brox; and “Body of Truth – Leveraging What Consumers Can’t or Won’t Say” by Dan Hill.

Family and friends often supply Hostetler with new reading suggestions. His stepfather, Dr. Thomas Register, is a botanist who keeps him current on plants and gardening; local Civil War expert Carl Davis recommended “The Judas Field” by Howard Bahr, a Civil War novel about Franklin, Tenn.; and longtime friend and fellow reader Jane Barthelme pointed him to “The Bonus Army” by Paul Dickson and Thomas B. Allen, the story of 45,000 World War I veterans who occupied Washington, D.C., in 1932 to demand bonus pay they had been promised.

Hostetler’s recommendations from his recent reading are “American Lion” by Jon Meacham; “Tipping Point,” “Blink” and “What The Dog Saw” by Malcom Gladwell; “The Complete Works of Robert W. Service” by Robert W. Service; “Truman” and “John Adams” by David McCullough; all of Pat Conroy’s works, including “The Lords of Discipline”; and “When All the World Was Young” by Ferrol Sams.

If you or someone you know would like to be featured in a future column, email davies42@bellsouth.net.